Germans in the state of Brandenburg were voting in a regional election on Sunday with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) expected to finish first, building on successes in other eastern states and beating Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats in one of their traditional strongholds.

After a string of bitterly disappointing elections, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz's centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) finally have something to celebrate after winning Sunday's vote in the eastern state of Brandenburg.

Brandenburg is a longstanding stronghold for the party. But it is located in Germany’s relatively impoverished east, where the anti-immigrant A f D performs far better than in the west. That made this election a test of whether the SPD could beat the populists on its home ground.

A state election is taking place in Brandenburg three weeks after a far-right party made gains in two other states in eastern Germany

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s SPD party narrowly beat the far-right Alternative for Germany in the Brandenburg election, which was seen as a referendum for him.

Germany's Social Democrats won in the eastern state of Brandenburg, pushing out the far-right AfD in a tightly contested race.

How much of what we saw in Brandenburg over the weekend was a vote of confidence in the SPD, or was it more a kind of pushing away of the AfD? How are you interpreting it? Yeah. So listen, I mean, when the when you look at the actual results here,

Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats held off the far-right Alternative for Germany and look set to cling on to power in the eastern state of Brandenburg, sparing the chancellor and his party another embarrassing electoral setback.